Allie Pleiter - The Bull Rider's Homecoming

Slowly—excruciatingly slowly and with all the ferocity of a bull fixing to charge—Luke sat down.

Chapter Three

Ruby drove a bit down the road before she eased her little car to the shoulder. She let out the breath she’d been holding since pulling the guesthouse door shut behind her and allowed her head to sink against the steering wheel.

The longest hour of my life.

Once Luke sat down, Ruby had expected things to smooth out. Having broken down the barrier and earned that one shred of compliance, she’d expected to gain more.

She’d forgotten who she was dealing with.

Oh, she’d gotten the boot off all right—albeit with a comical sequence of yanks and tugs—to expose the injured foot. When she asked him to use that foot, to show her his range of motion with the ankle or anything else, Luke turned mean. His frustration nearly darkened the room, it was so intense.

Luke had always had a temper—it was probably half of what made him such a good rider. Something came over him when he got angry, a laser-sharp focus and determination that plowed through anything standing in his way. He’d spent most of his teenage years angry, primarily at his father, and that anger had driven him not just to succeed but to excel. Now that anger was directed at his own body, which made it much more vicious as it spilled out onto anyone foolish enough to be in range. Lord, Ruby sent up a moan of a prayer, he’s a wounded animal—twice as mean and four times as dangerous.

It wasn’t as if Ruby didn’t know how to handle an ornery patient. Difficult patients were, in fact, a specialty of hers. Lana said, “Your greatest talent is seeing through the hard actions to the wounded soul beneath.” When Lana grafted Ruby into her agency, setting up Martins Gap Physical Therapy as an affiliated partnership of Lana’s own practice in Austin, she’d said it was because of Ruby’s gifts. “You always find the one gesture that will open up a crack in the walls patients build around themselves.” Ruby could always find a crack and pry it open.

Today that gift felt more like a curse. The true torment of the last hour wasn’t Luke’s behavior—that was just a coping mechanism, the battle weapon of a man at the end of his rope.

No, her real problem was her ability to see through him. To peer under the gleam of the brilliant shell he showed the world and see a man who wasn’t sure he could pull off the recovery he needed. A massive cauldron of doubt and pain boiled under that cocky disregard. She’d seen it for just a moment as he sat down, but within minutes of that glimpse he’d slammed the shell back on with the ferocity of the bull bison who wandered the Blue Thorn pastures.

Ruby’s cell phone buzzed beside her, and she fished it from her handbag to peer at the screen.

Been praying for you. Call me when it’s over.

Lana was the best instructor and mentor Ruby could ever ask for. Mama and Grandpa were supportive, but Lana often knew just how to bolster her spirits. It was probably due to Lana’s prayers that Ruby had lasted as long as she had with Luke.

Forgoing a text, Ruby dialed her mentor, taking a deep breath as Lana clicked on the line before the first ring even finished.

“And how was the Buckton beast?”

“Beastly,” she replied, glad to feel a damp laugh bubble up from all the tension in her chest.

“Does he look like you remember?”

“Oh, his looks have improved with age. Those eyes are still...those eyes. I’d forgotten how dark they could turn. That man’s angry glare could set a tree on fire.”

“That charming, huh?”

“Let’s just say I’m not so sure the Blue Thorn bulls have the worst temper on that ranch. If he’s the charmer of the bull riding circuit, I didn’t see any of it.”

“A mean son of gun, hmm?”

Ruby let her head fall back against the seat rest. “He was mean—but not in the way you might think. He didn’t yell at me or call me names. His methods were more cold. Heartless. Wisecracking and dismissive.”

“Ouch. How are you?”

Ruby looked back at the Blue Thorn’s rolling pastures that filled her rearview mirror. “I don’t know. I mean, I knew it’d be hard. But it was so much harder than hard—if that makes any sense. It felt more like sixty hours than sixty minutes.”

“Did you get him to do anything?”

In fact, she had. That was the one foothold she had in this mess, and no one could grab hold of an ounce of progress better than Ruby Sheldon. “Two exercises. And I tricked him into showing me his range of motion, which isn’t much at all. He thinks he’ll be back on a bull, that’s clear.”

“Will he? What sense do you get about his prognosis?”

“I have no way of knowing. At least not yet. If anybody could pull it off though, it’d be him.”

“Only...” Lana had caught the hesitation in her voice.

Ruby let one hand rest on the file. She’d have to write down her notes from the visit, and that would feel so very odd. It’d be a challenge to think of Luke Buckton in purely clinical terms. “You know how this goes. It may not be up to him.”

“Do you feel like it’s up to you?”

“No. Yes. Honestly, I don’t know. Even the best therapy program we have, followed to the letter, can only do so much.” Lana was the seasoned professional, but Ruby had seen patients throw themselves wholeheartedly into therapy and then progress both more and less than anyone expected—and it wasn’t always clear why. “I suppose it’s up to God more than anything else.”

She could hear Lana sigh on her end. She’d told her mentor the entire history she and Luke had together. “Ruby, I know I told you he could be a high-profile client for you, but is it worth it? You don’t owe this man anything. I’m sure he could pay anybody to come from Austin and take his bad attitude three times a week for thirty minutes.”

“I’m not so sure he can, Lana.”

“Don’t those guys earn big bucks? I read the guy who won last year’s championships was worth millions.”

“In the big series, yes. Luke’s not quite there yet. Besides, you don’t earn if you can’t ride, and Luke’s been out of commission since June. His sponsors may have all pulled out already. I don’t think he’d be back on the Blue Thorn unless it was his only option. Luke wasn’t coming home until he came home a champion, you know?”

“Don’t start making excuses for him. You told me you spent months crying over that man.”

Ruby closed her eyes. “I did. But I’m not that girl anymore, either.”

“And you just proved that. You could walk away from this right now and I would back you up.”

“I don’t quit on patients.”

“Luke Buckton isn’t ‘a patient.’ He’s an emotional minefield. Hearing the way you sound right now, I’m sorry I ever encouraged you to take him on. This can’t end well—for you or for him. You’ve got way too much water under the bridge.”

Lana was right. Their history did make things worse. “I know, Lana, but maybe it’s time to burn that bridge. After all, if I can get through Luke Buckton’s treatment, then I’ll know for sure I’ll never quit on a patient.”

“All right, I told myself I wasn’t going to ask this, but I have to know. You don’t still carry a torch for him, do you?”

The most startling thing about today had been the tiny, irrational part of her that did still care. The flicker of against-her-will compassion that made her walk to the car for a “forgotten” file just to save his dignity. It stunned her how, after all the ways he’d hurt her, her heart could resurrect any care at all.

“He needs grace.” It was true, but even she knew it wasn’t the whole truth.

“Perhaps,” Lana sighed. “But maybe it doesn’t need to come from you.”